I was the Linkedin queen. My final year of college I had racked up 500+ connections, an impressive resume, and a number of post-internship posts on my feed that were oh-so perfectly curated with industry lingo, that would attract recruiters like moths to a flame.
“So honored to have been an editor on this project for the department of Theatre, Film, and Digital Production at (University). Getting to work on “Through My Screen” and collaborate with many other individuals in the department on creating such an incredible show has been nothing short of inspiring.”
My entire final quarter of school was network, network, network. Interview, interview, interview. When a recruiter reached out to me as I finished my finals(a quarter early than my peers because I didn’t want my graduation Linkedin post to be drowned out by the others graduating in June), it felt like fate.
“I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as a Production Assistant at (Company)! I am so grateful to be taking on this role and growing in this industry and excited for all that is to come in my career journey.”
My Linkedin became so cool. I was reposting Disney commercials my company did, my name was in the freaking credits of a Netflix show, one time at dinner with my boyfriend and his dad a commercial I worked on aired, and I was always so stoked to share this with my network. But during my workday, I hardly touched any of these things. Sure, I sent a few slack messages to employees for their files or timecard;, sure, I made a few excel sheets to track progress on projects; and, these things would be so cool if I liked what I did. Parasocially, I loved my job. But when I sat at my desk for 9 hours a day until 7pm doing absolutely nothing I cared about, I hated it.
I hated my job. This isn’t what I wanted to do. This is what I told others I wanted to do because I knew I could do it. It was safe. It was “easy” to find a role in this industry because I worked it during school. Because it made sense with my degree. Because it’s what made the people around me proud.
I was driving to visit an old friend last weekend. On the drive over I was formulating what I wanted to tell her about my job. I didn’t want to lie. But also, I feel like I needed some kind of justification for hating it. I was rehearsing my speech, “I don’t do enough, I don’t see myself at the company, etc. etc. etc.” but in the midst of it, I realized that not being happy was justification enough. I’m not happy at my job. And that’s the reason I’m wanting to quit. I’m sure there are plenty of happy people at my company, but I’m just not one of them. And I deserve to work somewhere where I feel happy.
So this morning, I received a call back from a boutique fitness studio in my area that I submitted an application to. It’s something different. It’s something I’d like to try doing. And I’m going to give it a shot. And when I do, I don’t think I’ll post about it on Linkedin just to have something to post. I’ll instead try to love what I do instead of doing something just to make others love me.
